The Farthest Place: The Music of John Luther Adams

Abstract

The artistic heir of sonic artists such as John Cage and James Tenney, John Luther Adams is of the most significant and highly regarded contemporary American composers. The Farthest Place is the first critical look at the work of the composer whom the New Yorker critic Alex Ross has called one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century. While often identified with the Alaska that so inspires him, Adams is anything but a regionalist. Though inspired by the wild and open nature that surrounds him,Adams does not represent nature through music. He creates tonal territories that resonate with nature-immersive listening experiences that evoke limitless distance, suspended time, deep longing and even transcendence. In addition to the New Yorker piece by Alex Ross, and original essays by Kyle Gann and Wilco's own Glenn Kotche, The Farthest Place includes essays by scholars, critics, composers, and performers, merging theoretical and historical observations, musical and environmental questions with analytical discourse and personal commentaries on Adams's music and thought.

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